In establishments where cards are played, say for the purposes of gambling, a number of packs of cards are usually employed for each table where a card game, such as blackjack is played. The cards are normally shuffled by hand and then placed in a shoe or other device from which cards may be withdrawn by a dealer one at a time. Shuffling cards by hand is obviously time consuming and labour intensive and additionally often does not ensure full and even mixing of cards. Additionally a large number of packs of cards, often up to six packs or more, are used at each table on each day and those packs are then discarded at the end of the day. An apparatus has been provided in the past to facilitate shuffling of cards, however, such apparatus tends only to shuffle cards in the same way as achieved manually. Such apparatus is very expensive and has not proved particularly effective.